Open access resource
Topic: Environment and Sustainable Development · NCERT: Class 11, Ch 7 "Environment and Sustainable Development"
Meaning
An open access resource is one that anyone can use, with no limits and no owner who controls it. Each user takes as much as possible. The saving from holding back goes to others, while the cost of the damage is shared by everyone. So the resource gets overused. Economists call this the tragedy of the commons. NCERT lists open access resources among the 12 causes of land degradation in India.
Example
On an unregulated village pasture, each herder adds more cattle because the extra grass is free to them. Soon the pasture is overgrazed, the soil erodes, and every herder is worse off. Open-sea fisheries get overfished in the same way.
Don't confuse with
- Common property resource: this is also shared, but a defined community uses it under its own rules, such as a village deciding who may graze and when. Those rules can prevent overuse. An open access resource has no such rules.
Related concepts
- Poverty-induced degradation and pollution from affluence
- Land degradation
- Deforestation
- Soil erosion
- Biodiversity loss
- Air pollution
- Industrial pollution
- Water pollution
- Groundwater overuse
- Virtual water